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Monday, June 22, 2009

Twitch Week!

So, Jessica and I both finally caved and joined Twitter. To get the word out and have some fun, we decided to hold Twitch Week — a Twitter pitch contest. Follow Jessica and me @BookEndsJessica and @BookEndsKim throughout the week to see when we ask you to “Start Twitching!” and respond with your pitch. As you may or may not know, Twitter only allows 140 characters in its dialogue box, so you’re limited to that space. That means you need to keep it short and sweet and utterly fascinating!!

Here’s the rules:

1. Don’t post your pitch until Jessica and I have made the announcement (tweeted) to “Start Twitching.” We’ll be starting and stopping at random times throughout the week. Make sure you keep an eye on both of our Twitter pages to see when a Twitch session has started; we’ll each be starting and stopping contests at different times. When I post “Start Twitching” you can only respond on MY Twitter page. If you post a pitch on Jessica’s page when I’m the one that’s announced the Twitch session, it won’t be eligible. And any pitches posted before we’ve given the okay or after we’ve said to “Stop Twitching” won’t be considered.

2. You’re limited to the space in the dialogue box. No doubling up! Your pitch needs to begin and end in that one box.

3. You can pitch more than one project, but can only pitch the same project once on Jessica’s page and once on Kim’s page.

4. No ending the pitch in mid-thought. You don’t have to use complete sentences, but you must complete your thought.

5. This is not a blog contest. No pitches posted to our blog or sent to us via e-mail will be considered.

Jessica and I will pick at least one finalist from each Twitch session. We won’t be critiquing, just picking and posting the best of them. At the end of the week we’ll each pick a winner from that group of finalists and reward them with a critique of their synopses and first three chapters, as well as the title of the Twitchiest Twitchers of them all!

59 comments:

Sounds like fun! One question, though: doesn't this mean that people who submit to Kim will have a few extra characters? In order to submit the pitch to one of you we'll need to include the name, which also takes up space, and @BookEndsJessica is longer than @BookEndsKim. Or will you have a hashtag to post them to?

Cory -- a good point that neither Jessica or I thought of. See? We're still new to this Twitter thing too. We'll talk and see if we can come up with a solution. In the meantime, we'll proceed as is at BookendsKim and BookEndsJessica.

A possible solution: instead of directing the Tweets at you, people could add a hashtag to their Tweets (that is, #inserthashtaghere). Then, when you enter the hashtag in the search engine on the right, it'll come up with every Tweet that included that hashtag.

For example, #twitches doesn't seem to be used. It takes up less space than either of your names, and that way it doesn't make a difference who it's addressed to.

Great idea, Kim! I imagine you and Jessica will be in for some fun and interesting pitches. I also wouldn't be surprised if other agents follow in your @visionary footsteps! BTW: I'm also new to Twitter. What's a hashtag?

Debra, a hashtag is like a subject line, almost. It's easily searchable in twitter, so that people of like interests or people who want to discuss or read about a certain subject can easily find each other.

On Twitter, you just enter the #hashtag in the searchbox. With something like Tweetdeck, you can easily follow hashtags in an additional column.

Debra - In order for us to receive your pitch on our account you need to start with @BookEndsKim or @BookEndsJessica in the dialogue box. If you just hit reply next to my post, the hashtag appears automatically.

Just to clarify rule number 3 "You can pitch more than one project, but can only pitch the same project once on Jessica’s page and once on Kim’s page." This is not an either/or thing, but means the same pitch/project can go to both Jessica and Kim's twitter as long as it only ends up in each agent's 'contest-inbox' once, correct?

can we pitch this as a DM (direct message) rather than an @ message? I would feel more comfortable with my pitch not being out in the public domain like that. If it is chosen, I don't mind, but its dangerous to put a pitch out there for all to see, wouldn't you say?

Great idea! Don't know if I did it right though. I posted mine and then checked and I think I missed the Stop Twitching deadline by, like, two seconds. Not sure if I'll have time to try again today. Full life, yanno. Best of luck to everyone who successfully navigates!

"I would feel more comfortable with my pitch not being out in the public domain like that. If it is chosen, I don't mind..."

If it's chosen, you should mind even more, for then the idea has been validated (to the extent that 1 or 2 agents asking to see a project based on a short pitch constitutes validation), which should make idea seekers even more likely to borrow the concept for their own project.

The whole public idea broadcasting thing is, IMO, not in the best interest of aspiring writers. You do not need to be overly loose with ideas and concepts in this business. Yeah, I know, the execution is where it's reallt at, but still...It helps to start with a marketable concept.

Antoher thing to keep in mind with twitter is that htese tweets do not go away after they scroll off the current list. They'll be seqarchable in Google forever.

OK, for example, let me just pick a twitch at absolute random, first 1 I happened to see:

"Elle's dreams seem to be the memories of a girl murdered 17 yearsago. Can she solve the murder of her former self in time?"

While this concept in no way appeals to me personally, it's easy to see how I could adapt this into something that I execute as my own. (dreams = memories of murdered giirl). Particularly if I am already a contracted writer, and my concept-to-publication time is much less than the agent-less, completely unsigned, unknown writer. Not that most contracted writers don't have enough of their own ideas, but still...now I combine this concept with another one I've already been mulling over, and wham...I've cannabalized some unknown's plot and there's nothing she can do about it.

Aspiring writers: do yourselves a favor and stick to private channels when it comes to oitching your work.

A 140-character idea isn't going to do any would-be thieves any good. If every person who read this blog looked at the same 140-character idea and wrote a novel on it, every single novel would be different -- and no matter how good the basic idea was, only the ones who excelled in their execution would make it any further down the road toward publication.

Well, I deleted mine because I couldn't tell if it went through and if it went through by the deadline and I don't have time in my busy day to keep up and try to pitch the instant it opens when the chances of actually getting through are not good. There's always Query Shark! Best of luck to the rest of yas though.

Anons - do you know how hard it is to get access to an agent? And short pitches? That's a gift.

It's very hard to steal an idea. Stop scaring people. You're just being contrary and destructive.

You know, I'm usually over at Nathan's, and it is really striking that there are some (or one) anonymous posters here that are so hostile. It happens at Nathan's too, but less. I'm not sure why. Maybe because there are women in charge here. Or it could be a hold over from agentfail.

Either way, I don't like it. It feels like bullying to me. It also puts a glitch in potentially positive and friendly relationships.

What Bookends did today was generous and fun. I don't like what you're doing. It's unfair to the rest of the writers here. So if you see yourselves as advocates, think again.

"Well, I deleted mine because I couldn't tell if it went through and if it went through by the deadline..."

I'm no Twitter expert, but I'm pretty sure that deleting a tweet just means it's not visible in your own tweet history--if you sent it TO someone (ie @bookendskim), then they would still have it even if you deleted it.

I've tried to search forwww.twitter.com/BookEndKim - NADAand I've tried to search this whole address and the phrase @bookendkim and again nothing. Pages that don't exist messages.How to I find the tweeter sites to be ready?

I joined Twitter yesterday and....not savvy enough, I guess. Not getting it! I want to get it. I feel I should get it. But it just stares back at me and laughs at my glazed over expression. I don't know how to do it!! I have FB and granted, it took me awhile to catch on to that too, so maybe I'm techno-challenged. LOL. But I'd like to do this pitch so I'm trying!

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About BookEnds

BookEnds is a literary agency that believes in the power of a book. We represent authors who write primarily commercial fiction and nonfiction for adult and young adult audiences. Our agents include Jessica Faust, Kim Lionetti, Jessica Alvarez, and Beth Campbell.